Presidential chief of staff to visit demining site at DMZ

SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Yonhap) -- Presidential Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok will visit the Demilitarized Zone on the border with North Korea on Wednesday to take a first-hand look at demining operations the two Koreas have been undertaking, officials said.

Im and other members of the committee tasked with pushing for inter-Korean summit agreements will travel to the demining site at the Arrowhead Ridge, or Hill 281 in Cheorwon, some 90 kilometers northeast of Seoul, officials said.

The mine-removing operations came in line with a peace agreement that President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reached at their third summit in Pyongyang last month. The operations began Oct. 1 and are scheduled to be completed this week.

The two sides plan to conduct a joint project to retrieve war remains from the site from April to October next year. The remains of more than 200 South Korean soldiers and dozens of U.N. Command (UNC) forces, such as U.S. and French troops, are thought to be buried there.